Factors Affecting School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists’ Use of Language Assessment Practices with Bilingual Children (original) (raw)
Related papers
Speech, Language and Hearing, 2017
The oral language assessment of bilingual children is challenging. The assessment practices and challenges faced by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in countries where bilingualism is the norm have not been well investigated. This paper summarizes what is known about recommended bilingual assessment measures and their limitations. This leads to the investigation of the assessment measures used and challenges faced by SLPs working in Singapore, an English speaking and predominantly bilingual country. SLPs working with children in Singapore were invited to participate in an online survey that centerd on the themes of assessment practices and challenges via email invitations. A total of 26 responses were analysed. Results indicated that although the majority of the SLPs were bilingual, they too faced many challenges in assessing bilingual children's language skills. The lack of appropriate local assessment tools, data on the developmental trajectories of local languages and, the lack of practice guidelines on bilingual assessment and alternative measures have resulted in SLPs using standardized assessments that were not designed for use with the population. Despite recommendations from the literature, there was also inadequate use of alternative assessment measures. Given the diversity of bilingual children's language background and development, alternative assessments should be further explored to evaluate their skills rather than further efforts to modify or re-norm current validated standardized assessments.
Evaluation of speech and language assessment approaches with bilingual children
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2011
Background: British society is multicultural and multilingual, thus for many children English is not their main or only language. Speech and language therapists are required to assess accurately the speech and language skills of bilingual children if they are suspected of having a disorder. Cultural and linguistic diversity means that a more complex assessment procedure is needed and research suggests that bilingual children are at risk of misdiagnosis. Clinicians have identified a lack of suitable assessment instruments for use with this client group. Aims: This paper highlights the challenges of assessing bilingual children and reviews available speech and language assessment procedures and approaches for use with this client group. It evaluates different approaches for assessing bilingual children to identify approaches that may be more appropriate for carrying out assessments effectively.
Speech–language pathologists’ training and confidence in serving Spanish–English Bilingual children
Journal of Communication Disorders, 2004
The purpose of the investigation was to determine the level of training and confidence of speech-language pathologists in serving Spanish-English bilingual children. Surveys were completed by 213 speech-language pathologists working in the public schools. Comparisons were made among responses from non-diverse rural, non-diverse urban, and diverse urban areas. Results revealed that approximately one-third of the sample did not receive training in multicultural/multilingual issues as undergraduates or graduate students. Approximately, one-fifth of the sample could not recall whether or not they had received training in this area. Eighteen to 25% of the respondents in the three groups received information through lectures in one or more courses. A larger percentage of speech-language pathologists from non-diverse urban areas received training on specific topics related to multicultural/multilingual topics and participated in a larger number of continuing education activities than speech-language pathologists from diverse urban and non-diverse rural areas. No differences were found among the three groups with regard to their confidence in serving bilingual children. Although speech-language pathologists had some confidence when assessing bilingual children whose primary language was English, and when working with bilingual parents and interpreters, respondents lacked confidence when assessing bilingual children whose primary language was Spanish and when working with parents who do not speak English. Implications for the profession are discussed. (1) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to discuss the training speech-language pathologists have received in the area of multilingual/multicultural children. (2) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to discuss speech-language pathologists' level of confidence when serving bilingual, Hispanic children. (3) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to articulate the implications of this study for current training programs and the profession.
Dynamic Assessment With Bilinguals: A Focus on Increasing Clinicians' Confidence
Perspectives on Communication Disorders and Sciences in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Populations, 2015
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are obligated to judiciously select and administer appropriate assessments without inherent cultural or linguistic bias (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004). Nevertheless, clinicians continue to struggle with appropriate assessment practices for bilingual children, and diagnostic decisions are too often based on standardized tests that were normed predominately on monolingual English speakers (Caesar & Kohler, 2007). Dynamic assessment is intended to be a valid and unbiased approach for ascertaining what a child knows and can do, yet many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) struggle in knowing what and how to assess within this paradigm. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a clinical scenario and summarize extant research on effective dynamic language assessment practices, with a focus on specific language tasks and procedures, in order to foster SLPs' confidence in their use of dynamic assessment with bilingua...
2011
Alternative language assessment procedures are gaining in prominence as authentic alternatives to traditional measures, but scant data exist regarding the relative effectiveness of the data they provide. This paper first summarizes the criteria for effective language assessment of bilingual children as documented in the literature, and then comparatively evaluates the effectiveness of research studies employing the three most-cited alternative assessment approaches: descriptive, dynamic, and curriculum-based. Conclusions regarding the impact of appropriate assessment on issues of over- and under-representation of bilingual Hispanic students are also discussed.
Seminars in Speech and Language, 2009
Current language tests designed to assess Spanish-English-speaking children have limited clinical accuracy and do not provide sufficient information to plan language intervention. In contrast, spontaneous language samples obtained in the two languages can help identify language impairment with higher accuracy. In this article, we describe several diagnostic indicators that can be used in language assessments based on spontaneous language samples. First, based on previous research with monolingual and bilingual English speakers, we show that a verb morphology composite measure in combination with a measure of mean length of utterance (MLU) can provide valuable diagnostic information for English development in bilingual children. Dialectal considerations are discussed. Second, we discuss the available research with bilingual Spanish speakers and show a series of procedures to be used for the analysis of Spanish samples: (a) limited MLU and proportional use of ungrammatical utterances; (b) limited grammatical accuracy on articles, verbs, and clitic pronouns; and (c) limited MLU, omission of theme arguments, and limited use of ditransitive verbs. Third, we illustrate the analysis of verb argument structure using a rubric as an assessment tool. Estimated scores on morphological and syntactic measures are expected to increase the sensitivity of clinical assessments with young bilingual children. Further research using other measures of language will be needed for older school-age children.
The International Journal of Early Childhood Learning, 2018
This study investigated the psychometric properties of a speech and language screening tool “Profil de la langue, du langage et de la parole” (Speech and Language Profile) (PLLP-SLP) used with franco-dominant and anglodominant children aged forty-six to fifty-eight months who had entered the school system in kindergarten. All kindergarten students (1092 boys and 1080 girls) enrolled in a French-language school board in Northern Ontario in 2004, 2005, 2009, and 2010. They were assessed using the PLLP-SLP and formed the standardization sample for this norm-referenced language assessment tool. Reliable data is now available for this new speech and language screening tool to be used with French-English bilingual students entering kindergarten in a minority language setting. Scores for receptive and expressive language, as well as initial speech sounds and clinical judgment are available. An independent samples t-test revealed significant differences between groups on 4/10 subtests. In these instances, girls outperformed boys, though the difference was always slight (between .13 and .28), and anglophones outperformed francophones on one subtest, with the difference being less than .25. Speech-language pathologists working in minority language settings face particular challenges with respect to the absence of norms available for this population. Norms specific to language and gender should be observed when using this tool, as significant differences between girls’ and boys’ results, as well as between anglo-dominant and franco-dominant students living in a minority-language setting was observed.
Speech and language intervention in bilinguals
Revista de Investigacion en Logopedia
Increasingly, speech and language pathologists (SLPs) around the world are faced with the unique set of issues presented by their bilingual clients. Some professional associations in different countries have presented recommendations when assessing and treating bilingual populations. In children, most of the studies have focused on intervention for language and phonology/ articulation impairments and very few focus on stuttering. In general, studies of language intervention tend to agree that intervention in the first language (L1) either increase performance on L2 or does not hinder it. In bilingual adults, monolingual versus bilingual intervention is especially relevant in cases of aphasia; dysarthria in bilinguals has been barely approached. Most studies of cross-linguistic effects in bilingual aphasics have focused on lexical retrieval training. It has been noted that even though a majority of studies have disclosed a cross-linguistic generalization from one language to the other, some methodological weaknesses are evident. It is concluded that even though speech and language intervention in bilinguals represents a most important clinical area in speech language pathology, much more research using larger samples and controlling for potentially confounding variables is evidently required.